Notifications

Owned by Persia Xenopoulou (Deactivated)
Last updated: Oct 31, 2018
11 min read

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Overview

Notifications are messages which are generated automatically and communicate financial or customer care information to existing or prospective customers.  Notifications are sent simultaneously to multiple recipients who are selected based on user-defined conditions.  CRM.COM sends notifications by email or SMS or through third-party external systems, such as mobile apps or portals.

Notification functionality

  • Communicate information, for marketing purpose, loyalty programs, and billing.
  • Use predetermined classifications (customer care, reward, financial) depending on content type. 
  • Select notification recipients automatically by configuring distinct criteria.
  • Personalize content by using communication templates with pre-written text and tags (text automatically replaced with customer information).
  • Enable recipients to opt-out of marketing communications.

 

Setting Up Notifications

 CRM > Communications > Notifications > Set Up Types

Notification types

Notifications are generated and sent to recipients by executing notification runs, whose characteristics are defined by the notification type.  The notification type determines the subject matter (such as for a bill, reward offer or subscription), the recipient selection criteria and the content of each notification.

Recipient selection criteria depend on the classification of each type.  The three classifications are:

  • Customer Care: Information of a general nature such as a welcoming email for new subscribers with information on services and hardware.
  • Financial: Financial information, for example, an email reminding subscribers of an unsettled amount.
  • Reward: Information on reward offers communicated to rewards participants.   

Once types are configured, notification runs use type-specific information to generate notifications.

Notification type fields

The table describes the sections of Notification Type Data Entry page and explains how the fields in the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Main Information

Classification: The classification of each type determines which criteria are available for selecting recipients.

The classification is selected by using the NEW action. Select New and the classification to create. Once the type is created it cannot be changed.

Notification Information: The topic of the communication, filtered on the selected notification classification. The value cannot be changed after the notification type is created. The notification information available for each classification is listed below:

  • Financial:
    • Subscriptions
    • Bills
    • Wallets
    • Wallet Product Consumption
  • Customer Care:
    • Subscriptions
    • Jobs
    • Activities
    • Leads
    • Rewards Participants
    • Award Transactions
    • Spend Transactions
    • Award Expiration Transactions
    • Service Requests
    • Payment Gateway Cards
    • Payment Gateway Requests
    • Payments
    • Buy in Advance Request
  • Reward Offers
    • Reward Offer

 

Communication Information

Communication Template: The template to be used for creating communications for notifications of this type.  Available templates should be 'Effective' and their media should be 'Email' or 'SMS'.
Use the link to Create New Communication Template.

Default Email Type (mandatory for 'Email' media communication template)

Default Phone Type (mandatory for 'SMS' media communication template)

Criteria

Define the criteria that should be fulfilled in order for the notification to be generated.

For filters applied on balances (of accounts receivable, wallets, and notification classifications) the 'more than' value is inclusive.

Available for classifications
SegmentIncluded in Segment: Add lists which are used to filter notification recipients.

Excluded from Segment: Add lists which are used to filter contacts and exclude them from being notified.

Segments from one of the following main entities are available: 

  • Contact Information
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Rewards Participant (only for reward offers classification)
  • Any entity included in the related Notification Information selected under 'Main Information' section.
All
Notification History (of each recipient)

Notified Previously: Enable / Disable

Not Notified Previously: Enable / Disable

Notification conditions: All conditions selected in the same row must be met.  If there multiple rows, all conditions in at least one row must be met.

  • Notification type
  • Life cycle state
  • Created more than X UOT ago
  • Created less than X UOT ago
All
Accounts Receivable

Accounts Receivable Balance: Filters the accounts receivable based on balance. 

Outstanding Amount: Filters the accounts receivable based on outstanding amount as of a specific due date.

The due date can be specified in one of the following ways:

  • Due in X Days: The system checks for accounts whose outstanding amount is due up to a date equal to the current date + X (a user-defined integer representing a number of days). For example, if the current date is the 23rd of the month and X is 5, the system retrieves accounts with outstanding amounts due up to the 28th.
  • Due X days ago: The system checks for accounts whose outstanding amount was due up to a date equal to the current date - X (a user-defined integer representing a number of days). For example, if the current date is the 23rd of the month and X is 5, the system retrieves accounts that were due up to the 18th.
Financial
WalletsWallet Balance: Define values used to filter accounts receivable based on the balance of associated wallets.

Estimated Consumption Days: Define values used to filter accounts receivable based on estimated consumption days of associated wallets.

Product Estimated Consumption Days: Define values used to filter accounts receivable based on the product estimated consumption days of associated wallets.

Wallet Amount Expiration Up to Date: Used to filter accounts receivable based on the wallet amount that is about to expire. You can define a value for the number of days or months on which the amount will expire and for the minimum expiration amount.

Financial
Subscriptions

Subscription Types: Filters the accounts receivable based on the type of subscriptions owned by the accounts receivable.

Billing Term Schemes: Filters the accounts receivable based on the billing term schemes of subscriptions owned by the accounts receivable.

Financial
Notifications

Total Outstanding Amount per Notification: Define values used to filter the notifications to be created based on the total outstanding amount of invoices included in each notification.

Financial
Reward Offers  

Awarded States: Defines criteria for notifying rewards participant, related to previous awards for the selected offers.

  • Never Awarded
  • Never Awarded This year
  • Awarded At Least Once
  • Close To Be Awarded

If 'Close To Be Awarded' is selected, the Offer Achievement Progress per Classification section is displayed. Values must be specified for one or more of the following classifications:

  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Amount Based: Percentage of the amount that is pending until the award is won.
  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Number Based: Pending number of transactions until the award is won.
  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Item Quantity Based: Pending number of items that must be bought until the award is won.

Classifications: Several classifications can be added to filter reward offer types.

Reward Types: Several reward offer types can be added to filter reward offers.

Reward Offers: Several offers can be added and used as filters, as long as they are 'Effective'.

For Awarded State 'Close To Be Awarded' only the following classifications, reward types and reward offers can be selected:

  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Amount Based
  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Item Quantity Based
  • Reward Loyalty, Transaction Number Based

Reward Schemes: Used to filter reward offers.

Reward Offer Validity 

  • Effective Since Specific Period of Time (inclusive value, UOT)
  • Effective Since a Specific Date (inclusive)
  • Expires Within a Specific Period of Time (not inclusive value, UOT)
  • Expires on a Specific Date (future date, exclusive).
Reward Offer

Authorisation Settings

Available for classifications

Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct/Affiliate Marketing: Determines whether the authorization settings for direct and affiliate marketing defined in Contact Information will be taken into consideration when the notification run is executed.

  • If 'No' is selected, the customer will receive marketing notifications; the contact information authorization set to 'No' is disregarded).
  • If 'Yes' is selected, the system will rely on the contact information authorization setting ('Yes' or 'No') to determine whether a marketing notification should be sent.

If the settings for either 'Affiliate' or 'Direct' Marketing is set to 'No', then notifications or communications will be not be created.

To disregard the customer's direct marketing preference and be able to create notifications for affiliate marketing do not enable 'Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct Marketing'.

A separate notification type should be created for 'Affiliate' and 'Direct' marketing.
Customer Care & Reward Offers

 

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Related configuration areas

The following modules are related to notifications and must be configured for the notifications module to operate at its full capacity.

Manual LinkAreaDescription
CommunicationsCommunication TemplateCreate the communication templates that are used to generate notification content.

 

Using Notifications

CRM > Communications > Notifications > Manage Notifications

Notifications are generated automatically when executing a notification run, based on user-defined conditions. Notifications are read-only and displayed on the Summary page.

Notifications fields

The table describes the fields of the Notifications Summary page.

 Configurable

Summary Page

Number: Auto-generated unique notification identifier.

Type: The type used to generate the Notification.

Life Cycle State: Calculated dynamically depending on the state of the associated Communication Queue entry.

  • Pending: Not yet sent.
  • Rejected: Created but not sent due to errors. E.g., email or phone not found.
  • Completed: Sent to the recipient.
  • Completed and Removed: Sent to the recipient and removed from their inbox (E.g., Notification available through a mobile app was deleted by the customer)

Classification: Can be 'Financial', 'Customer Care' or 'Reward Offers'.

Contact Information: The notification recipient.

Account Information: A concatenation of the account number and name of the recipient.

Currency (of the accounts receivable)

Items: The information which was used to select recipients. Entity name and number (e.g., Subscription, S00011343) are available for all classifications.

For financial classifications the following information is also available:

  • Notified amount
  • Outstanding amount of the accounts receivable on the date of notification. 
  • Invoices (used for the calculation of the notified amount)

Communications: Information on the communication that was created for the notification.


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Creating and processing notifications 

Generating notifications

 

CRM > Notifications > Perform Notification Runs

The recipients of a notification are selected based on criteria defined for each notification type. The notifications are created during the execution of a notification run definition.

To create a new run definition:

  • Navigate to Perform Notification Runs and select the appropriate notification classification, displayed by placing the cursor over NEW in the Actions menu.  According to the selected classification, the respective notification types will be accessible in the definition.  
  • Set the notification type and configure the scheduling settings.
  • Click Submit from the Actions menu to generate the notifications.

A communication will be created for each notification, using the communication template defined on the notification type.

The communications are placed in a communication queue and are either processed immediately through CRM.COM (sent by email or SMS directly to the recipient) or processed by a third-party system such as a web portal or mobile app.  The third-party system will retrieve the communications from the queue and update it once the communication is received by the customer.

The following notification life cycle states reflect the state of the communication queue entry: 

  • Pending: The communication has not been handled yet by the third-party system.
  • Rejected: An error occurred during the transfer of the communication to the customer's device, inbox or third-party system.
  • Completed: The communication has been successfully delivered to the third-party system (e.g., mobile app or web portal inbox) or the recipient's inbox or phone.
  • Completed and Removed:  The communication has been deleted from the device it was delivered to (e.g., mobile app or web portal inbox).

Notification run definition fields

The table describes the fields of the Notifications Run Definition Data Entry page.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Main Information

Notification Type: Defines the criteria (which determine recipients) and the content (through the communication template).

Select an existing type or create a new one using Create New Notification Type.

When generating notifications of Customer Care classification, one notification is created per 'Notified item'. (I.e. one notification per activity associated to the customer).

However for Financial classification, one notification is created and includes all 'Notified Items'. (I.e. one notification for the accounts receivable which will include all the bills of the account, given that the notified item is a bill)

 

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Personalizing notifications

The text used in notifications comes from communication templates.  Although several notifications are created in a single flow, communication tags which are replaced by values relevant to each recipient can be used to personalize the text.

All notification type classifications use notification and contact information tags.

  • The 'Financial' classification also uses accounts receivable tags.
  •  The 'Customer Care' classification also uses tags of the 'Notification item' entity.
  • The 'Reward Offer' classification also uses reward participant tags.


Contact notification preferences

Contacts can opt-in and out of communications regarding direct (in-house) and affiliate (partner) marketing campaigns.  Contacts do not have the option to opt out of communications regarding financial matters, such as bills.

It is possible to override contact preferences when a communication is very important.

Customers can opt-in and out of direct and affiliate mailing lists directly from their email by using dynamic links.  For more information, refer to dynamic links settings in the communications definition.

 

Setting customer authorization settings  

Authorization settings (set in contact information) determine whether new contacts should be communicated direct or affiliate marketing material by default.

Applying or ignoring contact notification preferences

Notification runs apply contact communication preferences when the 'Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct / Affiliate Marketing' setting is selected in the notification type.  If it is not selected, the system will communicate with the customer regardless of the contact information preference.


Notifications handled by third-party systems

In addition to sending emails and SMS from the CRM.COM interface, it is possible to notify customers through third-party external systems that are integrated with CRM.COM.

External systems, such as private SMS Gateways or custom-made CRM.COM portals, have access to CRM.COM data.  Notifications (email or SMS) are labeled for the intended pre-defined external system.  The external system accesses the notifications using CRM.COM WEB APIs, transfers the notifications/communications to the customer and updates the status of the notification in CRM.COM (whether the message was transferred successfully, viewed or deleted by the customer).

For more information on communications handled through external systems refer to Communications.  

Use the notifications and communications WEB APIs to manage notifications from an external system, such as a customer portal.  Refer to the communications and notifications WEB APIs for a comprehensive list of available actions.

 

 

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Notifications Business Examples

 

Notifying subscribers with unsettled debt

Unsettled Debt Notification Setup

Scenario 1 

Company ZX wants to notify pre-bill non-VIP subscribers with an overdue balance exceeding €10, on the first day of each month, before deactivations take place, to ensure their service is not interrupted.

 

Solution

Configuration

Communication Template

  • Set up a communication template with a subject and content that matches your business needs.  

    Unsettled Subscriptions

    #Notification.number
     
    Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
     
    We would like to remind you that the outstanding amount of your account #Notification.accounts_receivable.number is #Notification.total_notified_amount, which is related to the following subscriptions
    #Notification.subscriptions_notified_amount
     
    Regards
    Company ZX Co.


Notification Type Set-up

  • Name: Unsettled Subscriptions
  • Classification: Financial
  • Notification Information: Subscriptions
  • Criteria: Specify to retrieve subscribers with unsettled subscriptions.
    • Notification History: Not notified using the same notification type in the last 30 days.
    • Accounts Receivable
      1. Outstanding amount: Subscriptions are considered as unsettled if the overdue balance exceeds €10.
      2. Classifications: Include all except VIP.
    • Subscriptions
      1. Billing Term Schemes: Normal.

Notification Run Definition Set-up

  • Name: Notify unsettled subscriptions
  • Notification Type: select the type that was created (above) for 'Unsettled Subscriptions'.

  • Scheduling

    • Schedule the definition to be executed on the first day of the month.

    • Schedule the recurrence for each month.

Creating communication templates with notification tags

Communication Templates using Notification Tags

Scenario 2

Company ZX requires communication templates for various purposes, such as:

  • Welcoming new subscribers
  • Informing customers that a job or activity is completed
  • Bringing outstanding amounts, unsettled bills or low credit to a customer's attention.

 

Solution

Create templates using notification tags.

Unsettled Subscriptions

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to remind you that the outstanding amount of your account #Notification.accounts_receivable.number is #Notification.total_notified_amount, which is related to the following subscriptions
#Notification.subscriptions_notified_amount
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Unsettled Accounts Receivable

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to remind you that the outstanding amount of your account #Notification.accounts_receivable.number is #Notification.total_notified_amount, which is related to the following bill
#Notification.bills_notified_amount
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Wallet with low credit

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to remind you that the amount remaining in your wallets is the following:
#Notification.wallets_available_amount
 
This amount is estimated to be consumed by:
#Notification.wallets_estimated_consumption_date
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Wallet Product Consumption near estimated date

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to remind you that the remaining amount of your prepaid services is the following:
#Notification.wallets_product_available_amount
 
This amount is estimated to be consumed by:
#Notification.wallets_estimated_consumption_date
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

New Subscribers

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to welcome you and congratulate you for subscribing with us. Your subscription information is the following:
#Notification.subscriptions_type
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Completed Jobs

#Notification.number
 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to inform you that the following jobs have been completed successfully:
#Notification.jobs_type
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Completed Activities

#Notification.number

 
Dear #Notification.contact_information.name
 
We would like to inform you that the following jobs have been completed successfully:
#Notification.activities_type
 
Regards
Company ZX Co.

Removing customers from partner marketing campaigns

Authorisation Settings

Scenario 3

Company ZX contacts its customers on a monthly basis to inform them regarding offers and new channels. Other than its own marketing campaigns, Company ZX also engages in affiliate marketing for partners. Some customers want to be removed from the affiliate marketing mailing list but remain on the direct marketing mailing lists.

Solution


Contact Information

Opt-out of Affiliate Marketing Campaigns & Opt-in Direct Marketing Campaigns.

Authorization settings related to affiliate marketing should be set as follows:

  • Send Direct Marketing material: YES
  • Send Direct Affiliate material: NO

Notification Type

Affiliate marketing campaign

For the system to take into consideration the affiliate marketing contact information authorization settings, the notification type used for the monthly affiliate marketing campaign should be as follows:

  • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Affiliate Marketing: YES

Direct marketing campaign

For the system to take into consideration the direct marketing contact information authorization settings, the notification type used for the monthly direct marketing campaign should be as follows:

  • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct Marketing: YES


System Process

Notifications created using the 'affiliate marketing' notification type are not sent to customers.

Notifications created using the 'direct marketing' notification type are sent to customers.



Notes

  • If you are using a previous release, view CRM.COM Release Changes.
  • Use the notifications and communications WEB APIs to manage notifications from an external system, such as a customer portal.  Refer to the communications and notifications WEB APIs for a comprehensive list of available actions.

 

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Glossary  

CRM.COM TermDefinition
CommunicationsLog the interaction between customers and agents. Communications can support multiple communication media such as email, SMS, telephony, post and others.
Communication TemplateA standard layout with parts of the information (such as direction, media, subject and content) already in place, used for creating new communications.
Communication QueueA queue which holds entries of communications to be processed by third-party systems.

Third-Party System (portal, mobile app)

External system that can communicate with CRM.COM to extract and process information.